Differences emerge over how new SFP can be made fairer

 BY FRANCIS FARRAGHER 

MAJOR differences are emerging as to how the payment levels of the vast majority of smaller farmers will be affected in the new CAP agreement expected to be finalised by the end of next month, when Simon Coveney’s tenure of office in the EU argricultural ‘chair’, comes to an end.

Fianna Fáil’s Agricultural Spokesman, Éamon Ó Cuív, has called on the IFA at national level to concentrate its focus on achieving a fairer spread of the Single Payment to improve the lot of ‘the bulk of farmers’, many of them getting less than €10,000 per annum.

He said that over 10,000 farmers from Galway’s 12,600 farmers getting SFP monies, were in receipt of less than €10,000 per annum in the Single Payment.

“The inequity of a payment regime whereby the top 20% of Irish farmers are getting 80% of the Single Payment must be addressed. We must also look at the statistic that shows the top 2% of farmers actually getting 12% of the funding cake – this is irrational and unfair and must be addressed,” Éamon Ó Cuív told the Farming Tribune.

He said that the whole thrust of the Single Payment philosophy had to be the sustainability for the farming regime right across the country and not just for a minority of larger farmers who had a lot more resources to thrive and grow.

“It is just as expensive for a small farmer in the West of Ireland, or in any other county for that matter, to put bread on the table as it is for the bigger operators. Even in counties like Wexford and Kilkenny, about half of the farmers are getting less than €10,000 per annum. Only 309 farmers in Galway are getting more than €25,000 per annum,” said Deputy Ó Cuív.

He said that next week, he would be involved in detailed negotiations with Commission officials in Brussels and he would be seeking a front loaded payment regime for the first 32 hectares as well as a minimum/maximum payment per hectare regime.

However Co. Galway IFA Chairman, Michael Flynn, told the Farming Tribune that the putting in place of a minimum payment rate per acre of €196 per hectare, as mooted by Commissioner Ciolos, would be bad news for farmers in the West, currently on an average payment of about €270 per hectare.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune